Before the Storm
by RazTheTaz
Summary: Rayne felt she was fine surviving on her own. Then one day she finds a wounded man in her forest and, against her better judgement, decides to take him in. At first, the crass and blunt stranger repulses her, but in time, she starts to realize that you cannot really live if all you are doing is surviving. M for language and mild adult themes.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello, this is my first time trying to write fanfiction. I really appreciate any feedback that you can give! I will update as frequently as I can. I do not own anything from the Walking Dead. The only thing I own in this story is the OC and the plot that I created.**

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Rayne never considered herself a particularly outdoorsy kind of person. Most of her life was spent in the comfort of a home with air conditioning and running water. She never pictured herself trudging through a forest with a pistol strapped to her leg, a machete hanging from her hip, and a bow strapped to her back. _The zombie apocalypse really has a way of changing people_ , she thought and smirked at her own little joke.

The deer that she was pursuing was in her sights. She was crouched behind a bush, careful to not stir any leaves or snap any branches. The doe had escaped her twice already because of her carelessness. While Rayne was not the best shot with her bow, she could at least hit larger targets nine times out of ten. The machete was, by far, her preferred weapon. It was quick, efficient, and, though it put her in grabbing distance of the walkers, it guaranteed her a kill when smashed into a decaying skull. She hated guns, always had. She hated the noise, the recoil, and even the feel of the cold metal in her hand. Now, she has even more reason to hate them. They attracted both the living and the dead. The latter she did mind quite so much as the former.

Rayne quietly rose from her position behind the doe. Taking a breath to steady herself, she drew back the bow string and let her arrow fly. The arrow pierced the doe's chest and sent the deer stumbling a few feet. With a pained yelp and a few shallow breathes, it fell to the ground dead.

Rayne could not help the feeling of pride that ran through her every time she made a successful kill. _Ah yeah,_ she thought. _There is going to be meat tonight!_

Just as she was about to step from her hiding place behind the bush, she heard a snarling sound to her left. Before she could so much as blink, the walkers were on the doe. They tore into the deer, spilling blood and guts all over the forest floor. The scent of rot and decay reached her nose and turned her surprise into anger.

"Hey!" Rayne yelled.

One of the two walkers turned from the meat and tried to stumble towards her. Rayne dropped her bow and freed the machete from its holder. She stepped forward, swung the machete, and promptly buried it into the skull of the walker. It dropped to the floor with the machete still buried into it, dead...again. The other walker, now realizing they had company, started to stumble towards her. Rayne ripped the machete from the first one and gave the second one the same treatment…again, and again, and again.

"God dammit!" She yelled as she brought the machete down repeatedly onto the now mushy skull.

She brought the machete down one last time. The thing that laid before her that once resembled a human skull was now a pile of mush on the forest floor. She wiped her machete off on a patch of clean grass and attached it back to her hip. With one last forlorn look at the now ruined deer, she started her trek home.

The light from the sun was just about gone by the time Rayne got home. She never hunted near her cottage just in case she ran into another human. The cottage she resided in was perfect for an apocalypse and she did not want to risk it being taken from her. It was small and nestled deep into the woods. The ivy and other vine plants had just about taken over the exterior, which made it almost blend into the forest that surrounded it.

Rayne was lucky. The couple that used to inhabit the house were avid gardeners and kept a thriving garden in back of the house. While Rayne did not have what most people would consider a green thumb, she managed to keep alive a few tomato plants, a cucumber plant, several green bean plants, and a bell pepper plant. She was even able to harvest the seeds and replant them when the weather got warmer after the cold killed off the original plants. Walking out back, Rayne grabbed a tomato that looked like it was mostly ripe for dinner.

"Could've been deer," Rayne grumbled to herself as she bit into the tomato. "Gonna turn into a freaking vegetable if I keep living like this."

Admittedly, the hunting had not been good lately. Not many animals ventured even remotely close to where she lived. In fact, almost no living or un-living things got close to her home. Walkers were rare and she had not seen a human in the entire year she lived here. She wasn't sure if there was something off about the area she lived in or if there just were not that many wild animals anymore due to the walkers. She munched on her tomato and pondered the question. Rayne never reached a conclusion about that, but one thing she was sure of was that she did not mind eating tomatoes until the world completely ended so long as other humans stayed away from her home. She had seen what humans could do, and it terrified her.


	2. Chapter 2

**Here is chapter two! I hope you guys are enjoying the story. Please let me know what you think. Thank you so much for reading!**

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Sunlight poured in through the bedroom window. Rayne's green eyes opened as the golden light hit her face. She sat up, stretched, and looked out the window. The trees surrounding her cottage were lush with green leaves that gently swayed in the morning breeze. Birds flew through the air, and their twittering and tweeting penetrated the glass of the window. With the sunrise in the distance, Rayne was overcome with a feeling of normalcy. It was almost as if she was on a peaceful holiday and the dead had not taken over the world.

Unwilling to further indulge in the fantasy, Rayne got out of bed and prepared herself for the day. She dressed in a black tank top, dark pants, and strapped on her pistol and machete. Given that this was her last relatively clean outfit, she decided that it would have to be laundry day. Her clothing choices were few and, admittedly, every piece of clothing she owned was stained in some way, but she hated the feel of day old walker goo and tried to avoid re-wearing those clothes until they had been washed. Grabbing the small basket that she used for laundry and her bow from the side of her bedroom, she carefully made her way down to the river that was about half a mile away from her house.

The walk down was fairly easy, and Rayne was usually lucky enough to not see any walkers on her way. She loved going to the river. The water was crystal clear with fish darting around this way and that. When she first found it, Rayne decided to try her hand at fishing. Well, either the fish were particularly intelligent or Rayne was just that awful at fishing. She ended up on her ass in the middle of the river with three walkers coming from the forest on the other side having been alerted by the splashing. Rayne stuck to using the river for laundry and bathing purposes after that.

Rayne pauses right where the trees ended and listened. The area surrounding the river was more of an open area and Rayne would not have the protection of the trees and the bushes. She listened mostly for the growls of nearby walkers, but also for any talking or cracking of twigs from nearby humans. After her fishing adventure, Rayne never had any more issues, but she was not willing to take a chance. Satisfied that she would only be in danger of getting shit on from a bird flying overhead, she made her way to the water's edge.

The nearby fish darted away from her as she began that arduous task of scrubbing her clothes clean. _Yeah you little shits. Run while you can. A fishing pole and bait are at the top of my list on the next supply run!_ Rayne smiled as she thought of eating fish that was freshly cooked over a fire.

"I really need something in my diet that is not related to grass," She mused to herself as she worked on a particularly tough stain. "Actually, what I really need is someone to talk to besides myself and the dust ball that has been inhabiting the corner of my bedroom."

Having said that aloud made Rayne pause. Her year in the cabin had been that easiest time since the world went to shit by far. It was peaceful and safe. Adding another human in the equation put that in jeopardy. Rayne was not sure she was willing to do that. Not after what happened to her old group. Rayne resumed her scrubbing.

"Maybe I'll find a nice dog or cat that hasn't become walker chow. I'll name it fluffy, teach it not to shit in the cabin, it could work."

Satisfied that her laundry was as clean as it was going to get with only water and her hands, Rayne placed the wet laundry in the basket and turned to head home.

She had just made it back to the trees when she heard it. There was a growling noise. No, there were a lot of growling noises that were getting louder and louder.

"Fuck," She hissed and dropped her laundry basket. She freed the machete from its holder and tried to become one with the tree at her back. It sounded like the walkers were coming from the north, but she could not be sure just by hearing them. She felt all her muscles tense and a cold sweat broke out on her skin. _Shit, shit, shit, shit!_

"Shit!"

Rayne's ears perked up at the voice that was not her own.

"C'mere you undead pricks!" The same voice yelled.

Rayne peeked around the tree that she was hiding behind. What she saw made her breath catch. There was a man followed closely by four walkers. The man's back was to her and he raised the barb wire wrapped baseball bat to bring it down on the skull of one of the walkers. Bone bits and goo flew through the air and landed on the ground. The body of the walker quickly followed.

 _He's got this. Time to go!_ Rayne grabbed her basket and turned to leave.

"Ah! God dammit!"

Rayne paused at the exclamation that sounded like it was laced with pain. She spun around to see the man gripping his right shoulder with the baseball bat in the hand hanging limply at his side. The other three walkers were quickly closing in on the man.

 _You can't. Don't get involved._ Everything in Rayne screamed for her to get the hell out of dodge. Only a small piece of her prompted her to help a fellow human.

"Fuck! Get away!" The man's voice had turned breathless and desperate. A hard thump on the ground indicated to her that the man fell.

Without even thinking, Rayne dropped the basket and ran into the clearing around the river.

"Hey, over here!" She waved her arms and the machete in the air. _What are you doing? Idiot!_

The man was on the ground with the three walkers closing in. At her yell, the walkers became momentarily distracted. The man sprang to his feet and managed to bash in two more of the skulls. He fell to his knees before the final walker was within range.

Rayne ran over, machete held high, and brought it down on the final walker. Gore exploded on her, coating her arms in rotting brain matter and bits of skull. The final walker fell to the ground.

Rayne's chest heaved as she took several breathes. She was not sure if it was from exertion or panic. She suspected it might be from both.

The man on the ground next to her also drew in labored breathes. He was no longer on his knees but had fallen on his side. Now that she was closer, she could see that the hand with the baseball bat was covered in blood. Quickly looking around to check for anymore walkers or humans, Rayne knelt beside the man. His brown eyes were struggling to stay open and his breathing seemed to be more shallow.

Hesitantly, she reached to pull aside his leather jacket. Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw that the white t-shirt was soaked through with blood on one side. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but a fit of coughs erupted from his mouth instead. He passed out shortly after that.

Rayne sat beside the man. For the second time that day, her indecision weighed heavy on her mind.

 _You don't owe him anything_ , the more rational side of her argued.

 _Could you live with yourself if you left him even though you could help him?_ Her bleeding heart made a compelling counter argument.

Once again, Rayne went against her better judgement.

"Whelp, better go and get the wheel barrel."


End file.
